<p>For those who've taken the class before, does Sethian tend to test comprehensively (i.e. problems from every chapter) or does he focus on the endgame concepts (Stokes/Divergence Theorems)?</p>
<p>Bump! Surely someone can help out? ;)</p>
<p>Quite comprehensively, although obviously not at the same level of detail as the midterms. When I took 54 with him, three out of 10 questions (or 30% of the test, since each question is equally-weighted) were about material covered in the last third of the class.</p>
<p>Hi Student,</p>
<p>I’m also taking sethian’s final tomorrow morning, and I noticed you mentioned that he doesn’t test at the same level of detail. Did you find his midterms more difficult than his actual final?</p>
<p>[One</a> of my previous posts about Sethian](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/631939-difficulty-schedule.html#post1061747819]One”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/631939-difficulty-schedule.html#post1061747819)</p>
<p>That said, I think I would have done just fine on my final if I had more time to study. That year, I only had 12 hours between 8pm and 8am the next day!</p>
<p>Also, while he doesn’t test at the same level of detail, you should know everything, because any subject material may show up. He had us invert a 4x4 matrix on the Math 54 final, and doing that was a complete pain in the ass.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice 
Much appreciated.</p>
<p>Is row reducing a 4x4 matrix really that painful? ~_~</p>
<p>what did you guys think of the final?
way too much unnecessary algebra?</p>
<p>I got owned…</p>
<p>
No, but Sethian has been vocal about his dislike of heavy algebra/computation-based problems, as opposed to those that require thinking and conceptual understanding. Then he gave us no less than two algebra-heavy problems on our final. It’s just somewhat hypocritical, I think.</p>
<p>
Sorry to hear. 
Hopefully, the distribution will be in your favour. As I said, Sethian has a history of curving his undergrad math classes to a 2.0-2.5 mean (I usually warn folks about this before they sign up for his classes), and if a midterm clobbering policy is in effect this semester, the final will basically account for your entire grade (even if it doesn’t, it will for someone else, skewing the distribution and consequently, the grading curve)</p>
<p>UGH so i got a B. Before the final my average was probably a high B (B on first midterm, A- on second, got above average on almost every quiz). So I bombed the final?</p>
<p>are you guys satisfied with your grades? any idea about the curve?</p>
<p>I was pretty satisfied with my grade. I had high As on the first and second midterms and got an A in the course. I’m thinking he didn’t curve the final since I felt about the same on the final as I did on the second midterm and he said if he’d curved that he would have curved up.</p>
<p>what the hell? I had a B+ for first midterm, 100 for second midterm, owned most of my quizzes and felt the final was really easy… and I ended up with a B+?? this is wrong…</p>
<p>I’m happy with an A, I got a solid A with 92 on the first midterm, 100 on the second midterm, and felt the final was 70% easy, 15% manageable, and 15% hard, partially due to the algebra.</p>
<p>Did anyone else think the algebra for #6 and #8 was unnecessarily convoluted?
I knew how to set up the distance formula to minimize for #6, but I kept ending up with a cubic function to solve. </p>
<p>Also for the jacobian in the transformation problem, I got 8uvw, but trying to do a triple integral with 3 variables was killer, especially when w’s upper bound was 1-u-v, and you had to square it too when you integrate.</p>
<p>That was my one qualm with the test, the numbers and functions simply didn’t work out nicely as they did on his previous exams, and this wasted a lot of time doing algebra I could have done back in 7th grade, without actually testing our ability to do the calculus.</p>
<p>You guys agree?</p>
<p>Yeah I got the same things. The algebra wasn’t nice which made me think I might have set something up incorrectly, but I did fine so I don’t think I did.</p>
<h1>8 I got 8uvw and the integral was ridiculous.</h1>
<p>And I also got a cubic function for #6, so I just put “I can’t solve this equation but I’m quite sure its solution is the point I’m looking for.”</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m guessing if we both got similar situations for those 2 problems, which I felt were the hardest, due to the algebra mostly, and not the concepts, then we were both on track. </p>
<p>Either way, I felt he could have written better problems for those two. Perhaps having us find the point on a plane closest to a point P, instead of a paraboloid. Same concept, easier algebra. I’m just a little frustrated for us as a class as a whole.</p>
<p>wasn’t the cubic function like 4x^3 - 3x - 1 or 4x^3 - x - 3 or something so x=1 would have worked? I mean you don’t actually have to solve it.</p>
<p>and just foil (1-u-v)(1-u-v)… there were plenty of time to do these things.</p>
<p>Anyway I probably did some algebra mistakes too :s but I can’t think of anything else that would screw me over this badly…</p>
<p>I don’t think the cubic function had a simple solution. I got equations for both z and x & y (they were the same) and I couldn’t eyeball a simple solution. I may have messed up in getting the equations but they seemed very right.</p>
<p>And zeroboy, that definitely seems strange, especially if you thought the final was easy. You can look at your final at the beginning of next semester if you contact your GSI.</p>
<p>yeah i had the exact same problems on the algebra for #6 and #8. and i was pretty confident about everything else.</p>
<p>asked my gsi, she said i got an 85 on the final, 89 for section, B in the class.</p>
<p>if it’s 85 just because of those 2 problems (which i set up correctly) and there’s no curve… that’s just not fair</p>